The opportunity to improve ski industry based on multicultural segment participation
The U.S. Demographics are diverse than ever in terms of audiences and this affects all the industries. The ski industry is another market that faces challenges in the next future.
According to ReachMulticultural, since the late 1970’s through today, skier numbers in the U.S. has remained relatively flat. With the aging baby boomer population which is a key part of that number, the challenge of how to replace those skiers is at the forefront. As populations change, especially in California and Colorado cities that feed many winter destinations, there are some efforts to reach out to different segments of the population. But is it enough? and will these populations be receptive?
Diverse audiences in San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, and others are key to the success for winter destinations.
Chris Stanley, Alcance Media Group‘ CEO makes a point “While from experience, in the Tahoe area the importance of Hispanic / Asian populations is evident. From the supermarket to the ski slopes, the influence of nearby multicultural audiences cannot be understated. Yet, what is way less evident is a consistent marketing effort to embrace the changing demographic.”
Visit Denver offers multilingual options for multicultural audiences.
For sure, there’s a lot for work to do. Most of the ski centers are just doing their first steps into this transitional process to focus on multicultural audiences. To set different Languages on their websites is not enough. They need to work consistently with the media plan and communications in order to reach effectively the right market.
Fortunately, some of them are going in the right direction from the use of new technologies perspective. This is the case of a 360° video ad, where combining immersive and experience with technology, the result is something amazing. Check the video out.
Chile is an easy country to visit. For U.S. citizens entering Chile must have a valid passport. U.S. citizens traveling to Chile for recreation, tourism, business, or academic conferences do not need to obtain a visa prior to their arrival in Chile. A Tourist Card will be issued for a stay of up to 90 days.
Santiago is the capital of Chile; it’s a cosmopolitan city with excellent hotels, restaurants, bars and shopping from tiny boutique and craft fairs to giant shopping malls. There are many social and cultural attractions such as art galleries, museums, theaters, opera and ballet, lively nightlife, parks, etc.
Because Chile is a very long piece of land, its extremes are very different; the North is hot and the South is freezing. Well, if you prefer places plenty of sun, certainly the north should be your destination.
In the North of Chile there are thousand of impressive places for visiting and we would like to recommend one: San Pedro de Atacama. Here you can find unique regions like Valle de la Luna, flamingo populations, and sand dunes. For one of the most spectacular places to spend a sunset, do not skip the desert.
The following video is a 360-degree video compilation about the driest desert in the World, the Atacama Desert. To enjoy this immersive video, please click on the video and move it in any direction to watch everything around. If you are using a mobile device, simply drag and drop with your finger to move the point of view of the video Enjoy it!
Because we know that is difficult to image a place like this before to travel but we would like to recommend a website where you can visit “virtually” this place in www.chilein360.com. For sure, you will like to be there in your next vacations.
Chile is nominated for World’s Leading Adventure Tourism Destination 2018 in the 25th annual World Travel Awards™.
This year is the third consecutive year where Chile has been named as South America’s Leading Adventure Tourism Destination at the World Travel Awards, most commonly known as Oscars of the travel community.
It’s funny but Chile had never been named South America’s Leading Adventure Tourism Destination until the country wan in 2015. Certainly, Chile demonstrated impressive improvements in this field, upgrades and advancements that have been made throughout the destination to cater specifically to travelers seeking out unprecedented adventure experiences.
If you are not totally convinced, we invite you to watch the following 360-degree video about the driest desert in the World, obviously, in the most amazing South American country: CHILE!
Click on the banner over the video and VOTE FOR CHILE!
Whether it’s in a Facebook newsfeed or on a trade show floor, 360-degree videos have been increasing in numbers over the past two years. Tourism boards and convention bureaus see potential in these videos, but are still learning how to best present them to travelers.
Since YouTube and Facebook began letting users upload 360-degree videos in 2015, with Facebook adding such videos on mobile last year, brands have more channels to push 360-videos to travelers for trip-planning and inspiration.
Still, some brands aren’t convinced that travelers have enough understanding of how to view 360-videos on their own and are experimenting with virtual reality headsets to showcase these videos at consumer and travel industry events.
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That’s the view of Gathan Borden, vice president of marketing at VisitLex, the visitor and convention bureau for Lexington, Kentucky, which released its first 360-degree marketing video on YouTube in March. Borden feels that watching 360-degree videos on desktop or a mobile device could cause distractions for travelers. “Once you put these videos on a platform like Facebook or YouTube you have to use the mouse to click around to see different perspectives,” he said. “People don’t really feel immersed in the experience and that’s why we use Samsung Gear VR headsets.”
VisitLex debuted its “Horses” video (watch below) at a conference for meeting planners in February that was created for both consumers and meeting planners. “It used to be that we were trying to show everyone everything in content marketing videos,” said Borden. “Now we’re trying to be more strategic to talk to you strictly about this horse message or this bourbon message, for example.”
The CVB’s next video about the city’s convention center, for example, only highlights a few rooms of the venue. “Meeting planners can explore the rooms at their own pace and we only want to show them what they need to see to help them make their decisions.”
Destination British Columbia has been producing virtual reality and 360-degree videos since 2014 and said that events remain the vehicles for getting eyeballs to watch the videos but they’re also able to reach more travelers at home on their own devices in 2017. “The cost of 360 has also dropped significantly in last three years,” said Janice Fraser, managing editor of Destination British Columbia. “In the past, we’d usually take 15 VR headsets and help people put them on at events. Now we’ll purchase hundreds of Google Cardboard headsets and give one to everyone at a conference and give them instructions to download a 360 video.”
As more travelers own headsets and devices capable of playing a 360-degree video, Fraser said the tourism board wants travelers to find its 360-degree videos on platforms such as Facebook and YouTube and the content hub on its website. The tourism board is also running some of its 360-degree videos as ads on certain sites using Omnivirt.
CHALLENGES WITH 360-DEGREE VIDEOS
Skift reported in January that while many travelers are interested in more immersive videos only a small percentage of consumers have interacted with them, according to recent survey data. About 31 percent of consumers have heard of 360-degree videos and only 13 percent have tried them, the survey found.
These videos are unique in that travelers can choose their own experience and decide what they see. “One of the challenges for us is choosing those locations and finding the right story to tell through 360,” said Fraser. “How do you build a story that has a beginning, middle and end? What is the action and where is it on screen? ‘Winter Within’ represents skiing in a lonely way, for example, because the only people you see at the resort are the two models in the video but that’s what we decided to go with to protect people who wouldn’t want to be in the video.
Though these videos are still a novelty for many travelers and will likely gain popularity over time, viewing them on mobile phones — even without the need for any headsets — could be problematic. “Mobile phones were actually over-heating when we were playing the videos at first because the file sizes for these videos are so large,” he said. “That’s one challenge that I think people don’t really know how to solve just yet.”
Borden said creating shorter videos to accommodate mobile devices and prevent overheating phones is a priority for future projects. The “Horses” video, for example, is more than four and a half minutes long, nearly two minutes longer than the average 360-degree tourism video.
Through demoing the video in-person, VisitLex also learned most people only watched through the minute and a half mark before indicating that they had seen enough and understood what the destination can offer for horses and racing.
Shorter viewing times are likely related to travelers wearing a virtual reality headset, said Borden, as viewers were watching the videos in virtual reality rather than on a desktop or mobile device. “For future videos, we’re trying to make them shorter and change scenes three times at the most and make sure to have graphics on the screen to help people understand what they’re looking at since sound is not automatically enabled on a lot of devices.”
Destination British Columbia, however, said its 360-degree videos tend to be longer than traditional videos which average 30 seconds to one minute in length. “Part of that is the user experience needs to be longer so that you have a moment to glance around you to see what’s happening because there’s still a learning curve with the technology,” said Fraser.
VistLex is using the Samsung VR mobile app to play its videos at events. “We learned that at first people were watching these videos like traditional 2D videos,” said Borden. “In the beginning of our videos we tell you to look all around because some people don’t understand that. Sometimes the things behind you are the surprising elements like a horse race scene we show when you have to look down to see the start of the race.”
360-DEGREE VIDEOS AS A DIFFERENTIATOR
Measuring the success of 360-degree videos is currently mostly anecdotal, said Borden. “We think we have the hook approach at events,” he said. “Our initial measurement of success is getting people to come to the booth and once they experience the VR to make them say, ‘I didn’t know Lexington had all that.’
VisitLex plans to film a 360-degree video that highlights the city’s bourbon scene because it believes that kind of subject works well for both leisure traveler and meeting planner audiences. “These videos help us stand out and this is an enhancement to the sales process,” said Borden. “They don’t take over but they help people understand some of the experiences to do in Lexington.”
But in the near term, it appears many destinations are relying on events and virtual realityheadsets to help them understand how travelers engage with 360-degree images and videos that will help them improve and tailor future marketing.
Below are recent examples that demonstrate different approaches to 360-degree videos that are shareable through YouTube.
Visit Idaho:This whitewater kayaking video has plenty of action and energy that keeps the content interesting from start to finish. Most of the scenes don’t drag and transitions between different scenes seem fluid.
Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau:Tokyo’s Sendai video highlights local life in the city and puts locals and tourists front and center in many of the scenes. While the lights in each scene are appealing to viewers, the CVB doesn’t make clear what viewers are actually looking at. These videos have also resonated with travelers — most of the CVB’s 360-degree videos have more than half a million views and that only accounts for YouTube.
Firstpost in partnership with Incredible India: This is an example of a narrated 360-degree video that clearly explains how travelers should interact with the video and tells them exactly what they’re looking at.
Destination British Columbia:“The Winter Within” video is a great example of surprising travelers with 360-degree video. During some scenes, travelers need to toggle the arrows to see the action they’re intended to see which could involve moving up, down, left or right. Though the video gives travelers a solid perspective of what it’s like to ski at Whistler Blackcomb the video is a bit long (3:37). The two skiers in the video, for example, spend about 15 seconds holding a bird that slows down the action.
Photo Credit: Many tourism boards are still learning how travelers want to watch 360-degree videos. Pictured is a still from Visit Idaho’s “Adrenaline Rush” 360-degree video. Visit Idaho
Virtual reality has a place in the tourism industry; stakeholders around the world are realizing this fact and integrating it into their customers’ purchasing experience. In this way, the Australian Tourism Office is offering a 360° video via its YouTube channel allowing people to take a virtual tour of the country and New Caledonia has set up a web-based virtual game.
As far as travel agencies are concerned, since 2016, Cub Med has been offering the possibility of watching 360° videos of its destinations and “Prêt à Partir” is even testing virtual reality headsets at the moment.
The e-commerce giant Expedia, meanwhile, has launched many initiatives, by partnering with various companies, including virtual tours of hotels via an app, a 360° video (Virtual Flam) and even a virtual visit of San Antonio via a 360° video.
Virtual reality in tourism is becoming more and more common and each VR solution has a specific role based on its intended end-use. In order to allow their clients to choose a hotel based on virtual reality, Mariott is offering The Teleporter, 360° videos available on YouTube, Google Earth VR as well as Samsung Travrer, a virtual tourism platform first introduced at MWC (Mobile World Congress) 2017.
Amadeus has developed a futuristic search and reservations system based on VR via its Navitaire subsidiary. Austrian Airlines allows clients to get a 360° glimpse of the interior of its aircraft thanks to myPanorama and the SNCF is currently developing a Proof of Concept VR application to help travelers prepare their journeys.
The virtual reality and 360° videos are being used in the tourism industry at every stage – from inspiration to final purchase. At the same time, VR is becoming an increasingly prevalent part of actual travel – as entertainment (example: SkyLights).
While virtual reality in tourism has become an important part of the marketing strategy of many brands, some companies are still investing in the “real” by mixing it with virtual reality (example: King of Vikings). VR still has a lot of untapped potential for promoting and enriching the customer experience.
Diverse audiences in San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, and others are key to the success for winter destinations.
